Netherlands Embassy

The new Dutch embassy is located in the Berlin-Mitte district, the earliest heart of the German capital, in-between the River Spree and the omnipresent TV tower on Alexanderplatz. In 2005 OMA won the Mies van der Rohe Award for the Netherlands Embassy in Berlin: “The jury felt that the embassy was a powerful reconceptualization of the notion of an embassy, a government agency, and a building block within a city. OMA's refusal to either adapt to the city grid or create a monument, choosing instead to create a carefully formed fragment that leaves open the question of what the identity of a government or a country should be, was much appreciated. It was also felt that the spiraling ‘trajectory’ that winds its metal-clad way through the whole block while allowing carefully framed views of the neighbouring city, produced such a seductive series of spaces carried out with such a sophistication of materials and visual effects and so revealing of its context, that it should receive the prize.